Merry Christmas – updates on book etc

As my regular readers have realized: I’ve not been blogging very consistently this year. The main culprit is the book I’ve been writing on karma. And yes, it’s nearly finished. However, since I’m in the middle of buying a house (only some administrative details left to figure out) and will be moving soon, the book won’t be out till march at the earliest.

Watch this space – or subscribe, so you’ll be updated without having to check this otherwise pretty dormant blog weekly. I do hope to get back to more regular blogging when I’ve moved and my book is out.

This year was pretty eventful all round: I earned more than I could spend early this year, but for the rest Google has given me (and many in the online marketing space) the runaround and my future income is uncertain. I’m not complaining: what I earned over the last 18 months contributes to me being able to buy the house I’m buying without too much of a mortgage. Still, I’m looking at other ways to earn my keep.

I’ve been increasing my meditation time and have now – fingers crossed – meditated daily for about 2 weeks. It seems that this time I may be able to keep it up. At least as long as I don’t (have to) get a regular job.

The coming year also looks like it’s going to be exiting. His Holiness the Dalai Lama is coming to Europe and I’ll be listening to him live for the first time in Rotterdam (location not yet final) and Hamburg. Lama Zopa is also coming to The Netherlands which has the local FPMT regulars in a jitter, but I have to admit that it doesn’t cause me as much excitement. I’m grateful to him for the way he set up the FPMT education program (or allowed others to set it up), but his books only rarely touch my heart. H.H. the Dalai Lama on the other hand is a constant support on knotty cultural issues related to Tibetan Buddhism in the modern world. Since the FPMT brings traditional Tibetan geshes (highly trained teachers) to the West, the culture clash is a constant companion when training in this tradition. H.H. the Dalai Lama helps in dealing with those knotty points.

Last but not least – if everything goes as planned I’ll be training to become a ‘mindfulness and ethics’ trainer under my favorite lay Buddhist teacher: Ondy Willson. This isn’t official as she’s selective in who she allows in on the course. However I have applied.

As you can tell – my life continues to be exiting. Every once in a while I get this echo of Dr. Phil in my head: ‘I want you to get exited about your life!‘. Well, I am and I wish you all the same for 2014, though I realize that many of you are probably still struggling financially, emotionally and physically. If that’s the case, I wish you the strength to deal with whatever plagues you, and the wisdom to know which issues to focus on. Do remember to enjoy the beauty of nature, the calm of simply breathing and the smile of a child.

Since I’ve been remiss in even giving updates, I’ll simply list the posts I had published in 2013. Many of these are guest posts by published authors: